In ‘Das Triumphirende,’ there is a portrait of Bessler. It is a curious picture, but what makes it stranger is the addition, in my copy at least, of a second portrait affixed to the first. This second picture has a hole neatly cut in it, which, carefully aligned, allows Bessler to look through from the first picture. The reasons for this are insufficiently understood at the moment and so I cannot comment helpfully on this, but there is another feature present which is of interest.

There are a series of letters beneath the portrait, which spell out his name, and it says J.E.E.Orffyreus, His Highness’s Counsellor of Commerce, Medical Practitioner and Inventor of the Perpetual Motion. At the end of the first line is a small, innocent looking punctuation mark; at least that is what it looks like but in fact it isn’t really like any mark I can find. I looked for an anomaly and I found it in the punctuation mark.

In the picture below you can see an enlarged version of the text with the punctuation mark ringer in red. I thought that the punctuation mark looked as if it should have been a numeral 5 which lacked the upward line to complete it. The final ‘S’ of ORFFYREUS also looks like a ‘5’ which would agree with his obsession with that the numbers 5,5.

I was tempted to complete the ‘5’ by drawing a line and extending it upwards. However to make sure I was not deluding myself, I first drew in the base line which I took as either the top or the bottom of the accompanying letters of ORFFYREUS. These can be seen to have flat lines on each end of each leg. I assumed the length of the base line as running from the first to the last letter.

Then I drew in the upwards sloping line (green) to complete the ‘5’ and extended it up to the margin of the picture. Measurement of the two lines showed they were of equal length but only if I used the line which ran along the top of the ORFFYREUS letters. The angle between them was 108 degrees, there are five 108 degree angles around the circumference of a pentagram. Notice that the bottom end of the green line aligns perfectly with the slanting semi-colon between the words ‘Perpet: Motion’.

Next I drew the horizontal line (yellow) from the point where the green line crossed the edge of the picture and found that it aligned with Bessler’s finger, which was pointing in that alignment.

I measured 108 degrees on the other end of the red line and added the blue line.

From the midpoint of the red base line I drew a vertical line (light blue) and added the remaining two pentagonal lines to complete the figure.

One other thing. I checked as I always do to see if the angles of the diagonals (light blue lines) of the picture below, measured 72 degrees and 108 degrees, the pentagonal numbers. They do and this is an indicator that the rectangle is of ‘golden proportions’.

This led me to another discovery. I’m not sure at this point how important it is but I think it may relate to the fact that behind this portrait lies another, with a hole cut in it to allow the above one above to peep through, filling the hole left by the removal of a head which was originally in that picture.

There is a wealth of symbolism and other clues, both geometric and textual, included in this picture but space prevents me from enlarging on these here.

For more information about Johann Bessler and to obtain copies of his books with English translations go to www.free-energy.co.uk